In 1879, Thomas worked out a successful principle for the electric light. He had spent two years searching for a suitable filament, or fine conductor that would give a good light when electricity flowed through it. One night, Thomas sat at his desk, idly toying with a mixture of lampblack and tar. He noticed that when it was rolled out it looked like wire. He had tried every thing else, even red hair from the beard of the station agent, whose child he had saved years before. Thomas twisted a thin strand of lampblack and tar, put in into a bulb, and drew out the air. When he turned on the current, the filament glowed for a while and then burned out.
Thomas decided that his mixture burned out because it contained air. He though of trying something that did not contain air, like a carbonized thread. The was ordinary cotton sewing thread burned to an ash. He thought this might work.
On October, 19th, 1879, after many failures, Thomas finally succeeded in placing a filament or carbonized thread in a bulb. The bulb lit up! As dawn broke the bulb was still glowing, it finally burned out when Thomas turned up the voltage, only then it burnt out 36 hours later. News of Thomas's invention of the electric light astounded the world. Thomas became known in all countries.
Although Edison patented more than 1000 inventions, he was a technologist rather than a scientist - adding little to original scientific knowledge. His experiment had a profound effect on all the development of modern day electric devices. He was a genius who loved his work and experiments in developing so many aspects of our modern life. Some of these are:
- the electric light bulb
- motion picture projectors and sound recording equipment
- modern electric power stations
- the modern battery
- the basics of the tape recorder, radio and the basics of modern television
- modern duplicating machines
made improvements on inventions already invented such as:
- the telephone
- the typewriter
- the electric generator
- the electric power train
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